I sat down to write this thinking that I didn’t have much to say for this month but that in the interest of maintaining (reasonably) regular updates, I‘d chuck out a quick post anyway. I’ve had one or two other personal bits going on which have taken up some brain RAM, but when I come to think of it there have actually been a few things worth mentioning.

I think the biggest thing to mention is the SketchCrawl workshop which ran on October the 28th in collaboration with Nexus Art Café. Despite the characteristically Mancunian weather (i.e. rainy) a small group ventured forth into the streets of the Northern Quarter armed with a camera, some Place Making Boards and the promise of a cuppa and some cake included in the price upon our return! We managed a series of 12 photographs as a record of our wanderings which share not just the state of the weather but also the participant’s memories and reflections on the places we chose to visit. It’s definitely the wrong time of year for much more of this sort of thing but the next SketchCrawl is planned for April 6th when I shall be running a new session to generate content for the This Place Is booklet project.

Last month, I also developed contacts with MidConversation; a new artist’s collective in Manchester. This was originally in response to a call out for artists to become involved with helping them to document their latest installation and following a meeting at their studio, they invited me to become involved with an event in which they would take their installation into public spaces. Unfortunately, this part of their project was cancelled, which was a disappointment; however there may be some future collaboration further down the line. You can read more of my comments about their latest work on the last CRITblog where they presented their recent piece.

Speaking of which, CRITgroup has now been running for nearly a full year, which I guess I should acknowledge as something of an achievement. We had our inaugural meeting last November and have been meeting at MadLab since January 2012. Though we’ve stated our ‘official’ birthday as December (as it’s a good party month anyway and falls between the two), technically it’s a year since November. Though this is something of a tangent to my practice and isn’t exactly a creative project, it has been an important part of my professional development and has supported and sustained the work I began on the MA by providing me with motivation and a peer group. I can only assume the fact that I’ve never ended up sat there on my own means that it has similarly benefited others!

At the next CRITgroup we’re planning into 2013 (we already have dates fixed up until June) and are going to start discussions with regards to developing a group collaborative project. We’ve been murmuring about this on and off since we got started but it seems the time has come to make a move on firming up some intentions. I have absolutely no idea yet what form this will take because we’ve all got very different practices but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to fit relevant aspects of my current projects in and use it as a bit of a vehicle to help me promote and develop those. I’ve recently been returning mentally to a project I proposed right at the end of my MA but never acted upon and getting quite tempted to start it off, however, I think that while I’m quite good at getting new projects up and running, an area I need to work on is the promotion and maintenance of my current ones so perhaps it will be an ‘excuse’ to try and do a bit of that! I’m not even going to mention the concept behind the ‘new’ project (though I’ll hint that it’s quite a delicious one!) but it’s there none the less, mulling away in the mental anti-chamber. I must be careful not to give in to only working on the ‘fun’ bits of projects though and probably need to do a bit more to generate content for This Place Is before I start any new ones!

The other thing that happened at the end of last month; another ‘sort of practice related but sort of not’ thing is that I have started a distance course in Astronomy. This was one of the reasons why I re sat my GCSE Maths last year and I have plans to develop this into a ‘test’ project that combines elements into my art work through social engagement projects but this is some way off yet. First I need to get my head around timing sidereal days, calculating luminosity and drawing Hertzsprung Russell Diagrams! In the interests of demonstrating the potential relevance to a visual arts practice, here’s a photo I took from my balcony in March of the moon rising over the (now deceased) wheel in Manchester!

Finally, whilst I don’t talk much about my teaching practice in this blog, I do like to share any public events that my students are involved in and this year they have been working on planning, promoting and making for a Craft Stall at the Tameside College Christmas Market on the 6th of December. So, in case I don’t get the chance to blog again before Christmas; why not come along and grab some handmade Christmas bargains whilst supporting local young people in an enterprise project? Sounds like a whole heap of Christmas Spirit to me!